May 1, 2020: Register for the VIRTUAL 2020 OALA AGM & Conference

The OALA Staff and Council have re-imagined the previously planned AGM & Conference to now be a completely virtual experience. 

Events will take place on several dates throughout May and June, 2020:

• May 1-8: OALA 2020 Awards Announcements
• May 13 - 12:00pm: Keynote Presentation - Michael von Hausen
• May 21- 12:00pm: Webinar Session - Dr. Mhairi McFarlane
• June 23 - 10:00am: OALA Virtual AGM
• Various Dates, April-May: Webinars hosted by Conference Exhibitors

More details about all of the sessions are found here.

March 23, 2020: OALA Conference Cancelled

The 2020 OALA AGM & Conference, in its originally programmed format, has been cancelled. This was a challenging decision not made lightly. It required time to discuss the implications to our bylaws, staff time, Association finances, and importantly our relationship with our members and guests. We appreciate your patience as we took the time to come to this decision. 

Education Sessions: We are in contact with the keynote and concurrent session speakers to see if they would like to share their session virtually at another time in the coming months. We will keep you posted on upcoming opportunities to participate in these. 

AGM: Council is now looking into options to hold a virtual AGM prior to June 30^th (as per the OALA Bylaws). We will send further notice of this when details are available.

The OALA will be providing full refunds to those who have already registered for the Conference and submitted payment. Please allow us several weeks to processes these refunds as we are working from home and access to bookkeeping is limited. Refunds will be offered in the same form of payment they were made, and e-transfers will be refunded via cheque.
 
If you have already booked a hotel room at the DoubleTree in London, ON, it is your responsibility to cancel the hotel room booking.

March 20, 2020: Message to Sponsors and Exhibitors

We will not be offering an alternative Trade Show date at this time for 2020. We are however looking at digital options for some of our Continuing Education sessions, as well as our AGM. 

We know that the annual OALA Conference offers you a key opportunity to meet with our members. We want to work with you over the coming months to find alternative solutions to advertise and share news of your products and services with our members. Should sponsorship opportunities arise for the digital opportunities we are offering our members, I will be sure to reach out those who signed up to sponsor and exhibitit FIRST for their interest. 

The OALA will be providing full refunds to those who have submitted payment. Please allow us several weeks to processes these refunds as we are working from home and access to bookkeeping is limited. Refunds will be offered in the same form of payment they were made (ie. cheque, credit card).

March 17, 2020: Cancellations

If you would like to cancel your registration, please contact Sarah at coordinator@oala.ca to do so (cancellations cannot be completed by editing your registration). Please allow 1-3 business days for the cancellation to go through. If you have paid by credit card, refunds will be made at the time of cancellation. If you have paid by e-transfer, please also provide whom we should write the refund cheque to upon cancellation. 

March 11, 2020:

The OALA Council has flagged recent COVID-19 developments and is staying up to date. They will work with the Conference Planning Committee to continue to stay informed, research options and ensure we are taking steps to mitigate risks and are following the recommendations of Public Health Ontario.

OALA is currently planning to proceed with all of our meetings and events. Please know that we are evaluating the COVID-19 situation daily and will adjust based on additional feedback from our research and the meeting destination and venue. 

We are hearing from our members and exhibitors that they will be attending, and registrations continue to be on pace with the normal patterns we see year-over-year. As are others who are waiting to see how the situation develops — we will keep you informed on any updates or changes.

For those who have registered, our cancellation policy in the Terms & Conditions states: Refunds for registration are not available after the registration closing date (April 20, 2020), or for no-show attendees. Cancellations can be made in advance of the registration closing date upon reasonable request*. Note that registration is editable until the registration closing date, and you can add or remove items and attendees as required until then.

*COVID-19 restrictions will be considered a reasonable request to cancel.